termagant of a neighbor, and endeavoring to reinstate himself in her esteem, after the manner of the meek of the earth who seek not their own.
But there are those to whom meekness is but a confession of weakness. The redoubtable Mrs. Dack never perceived in Abel a nature handicapped from the start, essentially fine, struggling against odds to maintain and fulfill the obligations of existence. She may have been herself the thwarted victim of circumstances. Nay, are we not all more or less so?
Yet there are things against which every normal instinct rebels. Cruelty is one of them. I have spoken of Abel as handicapped. A great and unatonable wrong had been done to him indirectly in his childhood. He had been allowed to grow up without learning to read and write. At least indisputable evidence points that way, though it had never been mentioned between us, or allowed to come into the open.
Early orphaned, and brought up by a busy Aunt with her own quiver full, living in isolated country regions, the thing had probably never been realized until it was too late. I
